


The Persistence of Malady

by Morbane



Series: The Persistence of Memory [2]
Category: The Middleman (TV)
Genre: Altered Mental States, Collection: Purimgifts Day 2, Constructive Criticism Welcome, Fluff, Gen, extremely silly cultural references
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-22
Updated: 2013-02-22
Packaged: 2017-12-03 05:49:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 922
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/694859
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Morbane/pseuds/Morbane
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Facehuggers. Or not.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Persistence of Malady

**Author's Note:**

  * For [were_duck](https://archiveofourown.org/users/were_duck/gifts).



“Let me guess. It was Bring a Pet Session today at your Hugs Not Drugs Mind-Expansion meet up.”

“It’s always Bring a Pet Day at Hugs Not Drugs,” Lacey informed Wendy. “Bringing a companion animal to sessions has really solved the conflicts between intimate boundaries and the desire to experience altered states of mind through tactile connection to other living creatures.”

“So she couldn’t just bring a non-allergenic snake?”

“Well, you know what they say about pets,” said Lacey. “You don’t choose them. They choose you.”

When Lacey had called Wendy up to get help on a facehugger in art group, Wendy had called up the Middleman.

“Kind of like an albino scorpion? Long tail? Prominent spine? Goes for respiratory apertures?” The Middleman paused for her confirmation. “Honeyfuggler of a heffalump, Dubbie.”

But by then the facehugger had fallen off, and a proportionately freaked-out Melody had checked herself in at a hospital.

“Shouldn’t we get her back to the Middlequarters?” Wendy said. “Go in, IDs blazing, as tax inspectors or voice coaches or something?”

“I have another idea,” Lacey and the Middleman said almost at once.

“Wait,” Wendy said, holding her hand over her Middlewatch, and jerking _go ahead_ to Lacey with her chin. But the Middleman continued:

“I’ve contacted the pre-eminent pathology expert in the nation. If he can’t diagnose her within minutes -” _dubious, unless medical education includes a preliminary course in TVTropes,_ thought Wendy - “he’ll be forced to take my advice in order to maintain his credibility, and then we’ll have HEYDAR knowledge plus medical virtuosity.”

At the same time, Lacey was saying, “My mother, Dr Barbara Thornfield, MD, PhD, has a brilliant obstetrician who owes her a favour. Dr Castle. And I mean a big favour. She’s already in the system, so, well...”

 

Lacey paced around the apartment, muttering under her breath as she practised a script declaiming the annual growth of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, and also folding her laundry.

After a while, she noticed that Wendy’s eyes were open and she had propped herself up in a half-sitting position. “Lacey?” said Wendy. “Did that happen?”

“Did what happen, Dub-Dub?”

“A friend named Melody, and horrific reproductive health issues,” said Wendy, committing euphemism. “And an epic showdown between Dr House, adept in sarcasm, and Dr Castle, adept in idealism and compassion with a side of well-choreographed bad-assery.”

“Um,” said Lacey. “No House. No wacky antics. Melody’s okay. Her sister sent us a card when Leah was born. So - yes?”

“No facehuggers.”

“Definitely no facehuggers,” Lacey said. “But, since you’re on the couch, I can tell you where you got them from...”

"On the couch?” said Wendy, three-quarters-suspicious, despite still being only half alert. “No Freud, please...”

“No, silly,” Lacey said, “it’s _that_ couch.”

“Oh,” Wendy said, looking at the bare, pin-pocked wall behind her. “The location at which you put up the poster affirming that your connection you had to Dr Barbara Thornfield, MD, PhD, did not map entirely onto the social model of ‘mother’, and that you needed a visual sign to tie to your central ideas about motherhood.”

“You got it, Dub-Dub,” said Lacey.

“The couch whose wall is now bare of a Ripley poster, because you felt that while this affirmation had helped you, it also isolated you and stunted your avenues of approach with Dr Barbara Thornfield, MD, PhD, and while she wasn’t a conventional mother, you awaited developments in unfolding the true connection you felt with her.”

“That’s right,” agreed Lacey. “And the relevant part is Ellen Ripley, long may she reign. You’re still pretty out of it, huh?”

“Yeah,” said Wendy. “This isn’t optimal, you know?”

She watched Lacey fold laundry for several minutes more without speaking.

“Where do you suppose I got Dr Castle?” she said abruptly. “Assuming that wasn't just my inexhaustible store of badass women role-models.”

“Well,” said Lacey, “there was that instructor in art school who picked a heck of a fight with Mrs Perlman over interpretive dance."

She watched Wendy’s face. “No? Um - doctors saving the world, let's see. There was that administrator whom my mother's colleague hired to cut corruption precisely 42% in that literacy NGO in Thailand... Frances something? It might have been Castle. Or House. Man?"

Wendy shook her head.

"Okay, maybe it was someone connected with Melody. That dean of her law school who helped us with the health insurance paperwork. She said to call her Baby, everyone did..."

"I remember that," said Wendy. "That was actually funny at the time. Huh."

"Maybe that's it, then," Lacey said, hanging up the last boho sweater.

"Could be," Wendy said. 

She opened her mouth to whine about disorientation and closed it again. Her head was ringing, her vision was slightly fuzzy in a delayed-shutter sort of light-halo-y way, and her images of competent female authority figures were all blurring into one, but the sound of Lacey's voice was soothing - especially since the things she said seemed to be occurring in normal order - and if anyone could help her keep a handle on memories, it was the person whom she shared half her memories with.

It occurred to Wendy that she was spending a lazy afternoon in her apartment with her best friend, and the sun was shining, and that these things made sun-dial-stroke (whatever) not totally suck.

"I'm going back to sleep," she muttered, shifting on the couch again. "Can I dream?"

"Sure, Dub-Dub," said Lacey, straight-faced, silhouetted against the window, brandishing a paintbrush as if she were painting the sky. "We both can."


End file.
